Fire! with Oren Ambarchi: In the Mouth – a Hand

Heavier than Higgs Boson and just as awe-inspiring

Let me wager that this elemental LP from free-rock trio Fire! was recorded at CERN, the world’s largest physics lab, with Australian musician Oren Ambarchi plugging his guitar straight into the Large Hadron Collider. It’s as if he’s converting a stream of radioactive energy into a gushing mass of distortion and feedback, egged on by biker-gang physicists equipped with superconductors for drums.

Out of this deranged experiment a new life-form is born, expelling its first lungful in a hideous retching howl which tears through the speaker cone like an Alien chest-burster. Or perhaps that’s just Mats Gustafsson’s imperious sax. Either way, this is heavier than the Higgs Boson, and just as awe-inspiring.